Isla de los Estados (English: Staten Island, from the Dutch ''Stateneiland'') is an

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...

island that lies off the eastern extremity of

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla ...

, from which it is separated by the Le Maire Strait. It was named after the

Netherlands States-General The States General of the Netherlands ( nl, Staten-Generaal ) is the supreme bicameral legislature of the Netherlands consisting of the Senate () and the House of Representatives (). Both chambers meet at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The States G ...

, the Dutch parliament. The island is part of the Argentinian province of

, and of the department and city of

Ushuaia Ushuaia ( , ) is the capital of Tierra del Fuego, Antártida e Islas del Atlántico Sur Province, Argentina. With a population of nearly 75,000 and a location below the 54th parallel south latitude, Ushuaia claims the title of world's southernm ...

. It has been declared an "Ecological, Historic, and Tourist Provincial Reserve" ("''Reserva provincial ecológica, histórica y turística''"), with access limited to tours from Ushuaia. The only settlement is the Puerto Parry Naval Station, located in a deep and narrow

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Icel ...

on the northern coast of the island. The naval station, established in 1978, is manned by a team of four marines on a 45-day rotation. They monitor environmental conservation and ship movements, and provide emergency assistance.

History

Prior to European arrival, the island was visited by the

Yamana people The Yahgan (also called Yagán, Yaghan, Yámana, Yamana or Tequenica) are a group of indigenous peoples in the Southern Cone. Their traditional territory includes the islands south of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, extending their presence in ...

, who inhabited the islands south of

Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego (English: ''Big Island of the Land of Fire'') also formerly ''Isla de Xátiva''Francisco de Hoces, when in 1526 the ship San Lesmes, from the Spanish expedition of Loaísa, separated from the rest in a storm, being displaced to the south parallel 55, becoming the discoverer of the great island east of Tierra del Fuego, which would later be called the Island of the States or Staten Island. Almost a century after the Spaniards, the Dutch explorers

Jacob le Maire Jacob Le Maire (c. 1585 – 22 December 1616) was a Dutch mariner who circumnavigated the earth in 1615 and 1616. The strait between Tierra del Fuego and Isla de los Estados was named the Le Maire Strait in his honour, though not without controver ...

and

Willem Schouten Willem Cornelisz Schouten ( – 1625) was a Dutch navigator for the Dutch East India Company. He was the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean. Biography Willem Cornelisz Schouten was born in c. 1567 in Hoorn, Holland, Sev ...

passed the island on 25 December 1615, naming it ''Staten Landt''. Le Maire and Schouten sailed their ship, ''Eendracht'', through a route south of the Straits of Magellan, a route now called the Le Maire Strait. To his left Le Maire noted the land mass which he called ''Staten Landt''; he theorized it was perhaps a portion of the great ' Southern Continent.' (The first European name for

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country ...

was Staten Landt, the name given to it by the Dutch explorer

Abel Tasman Abel Janszoon Tasman (; 160310 October 1659) was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first known European explorer to reach New Z ...

, who in 1642 became the first European to see the islands. Tasman also assumed it was part of the 'Southern Continent' later known as Antarctica.) The

Dutch expedition to Valdivia The Dutch expedition to Valdivia was a naval expedition, commanded by Hendrik Brouwer, sent by the Dutch Republic in 1643 to establish a base of operations and a trading post on the southern coast of Chile. With Spain and the Dutch Republi ...

of 1643 intended to sail through Le Maire Strait but strong winds made it instead drift south and east. The small fleet led by

Hendrik Brouwer Hendrik Brouwer (; 1581 – 7 August 1643) was a Dutch explorer and governor of the Dutch East Indies. East Indies Brouwer is thought to first have sailed to the Dutch East Indies for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1606. In 1610, ...

managed to enter the Pacific Ocean sailing south of the island disproving earlier beliefs that it was part of

Terra Australis (Latin: '"Southern Land'") was a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. Its existence was not based on any survey or direct observation, but rather on the idea that ...

. No Europeans are known to have settled on the island for more than 200 years. In 1862 Argentine

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they ar ...

Luis Piedrabuena established a shelter near Port Cook, and built a small

seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to impr ...

oil extraction facility on the island. On New Year's Day, 1775, Captain

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and ...

named what is now "Puerto Año Nuevo", "New Years Port". Seal hunters established a short-lived factory there (1786-1787), but abandoned it after ''Duke of York'' wrecked there on 11 September 1787 while bringing supplies. The island is also referenced in

Richard Henry Dana Jr. Richard Henry Dana Jr. (August 1, 1815 – January 6, 1882) was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts, a descendant of a colonial family, who gained renown as the author of the classic American memoir ''Two Years Before the Mast''. ...

's book ''

Two Years Before the Mast ''Two Years Before the Mast'' is a memoir by the American author Richard Henry Dana Jr., published in 1840, having been written after a two-year sea voyage from Boston to California on a merchant ship starting in 1834. A film adaptation under the ...

'' as the first land they see after leaving San Diego. He describes the land as ". . . bare, broken, and girt with rocks and ice, with here and there, between rocks and broken hillocks, a little stunted vegetation of shrubs. . ." More than twenty years later, the San Juan del Salvamento Lighthouse was inaugurated on May 25, 1884, by Comodoro

Augusto Lasserre Commodore Augusto Lasserre (1826-1906) was an officer in the Argentine Navy. He was born in 1826 in Montevideo. Lasserre was promoted to the rank of captain on the 11 June 1852. Later he was promoted to Commander of the Argentine Navy. Commodore ...

. It operated until September 1900. The lighthouse, better known as ''Faro del fin del mundo'' ("Lighthouse at the end of the world"), is said to have inspired

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;'' Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

's novel ''The Lighthouse at the End of the World'' (1905). A military prison was based on the island from 1896 to 1902. It had to be moved to Tierra del Fuego after being compromised by the strong winds.

Geography

The island is approximately long east-west, and wide, with an area of . The island is deeply indented by bays. Its highest point is , and is considered to be the last prominence of the Andes mountain range. It receives around of rain per year. The island is surrounded by minor islands and rocks, the largest being ''Observatorio'' island north, with an area of . At the eastern end of the island is Cape St John, a landmark for ships sailing around the island in order to avoid the currents and tides of the Le Maire Strait to the west.

Geology

The island is mainly composed of the Jurassic Lemaire Formation, composed of

tuff Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock cont ...

s and

lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or und ...

s. The ''Islas Año Nuevo'', ''Isla Observatoria'', and the ''Caleta Lacroix'' region on the west coast, however, have exposures of the Jurassic- Cretaceous Beauvoir Formation, mainly composed of

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especially ...

mudstone Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from ''shale'' by its lack of fissility (parallel layering).Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology.'' ...

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms when ...

s, and

graywacke Greywacke or graywacke ( German ''grauwacke'', signifying a grey, earthy rock) is a variety of sandstone generally characterized by its hardness, dark color, and poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments or li ...

, plus silt, clay, sand and gravel glacial fluvial deposits. There are at least 18

s, with associated glacial sediments such as

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice she ...

s and

till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

, especially prevalent at Cape San Antonio and Cape Colnett on the north coast. Key fjords on the north coast include Port Hoppner, Port Parry, Port Basil Hall, Port Año Nuevo, Port Cook, and Port San Juan Del Salvamento going east to west. Key fjords on the south coast include ''Bahía Capitan Cánepa'', Port Lobo, Port Vancouver, and ''Bahía Blossom'', going east to west. Cape Kempe on the south coast lies opposite Cape San Antonio. Estados

Climate

The island has a cold and humid climate and is characterized by rapid and unpredictable changes in the weather from day to day. Under the Köppen climate classification, despite the vegetation, it would be classified as a mild

tundra climate The tundra climate is a polar climate sub-type located in high latitudes and high mountains. undra climate https://www.britannica.com/science/tundra-climateThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019 It is classified as ET according to Köppen ...

(''ET''), a cold climate with a mean temperature in the warmest month below with abundant precipitation year-round. The climate of the island is strongly influenced by the subpolar low pressure system which develops around the

Antarctic Circle The Antarctic Circle is the most southerly of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of Earth. The region south of this circle is known as the Antarctic, and the zone immediately to the north is called the Southern Temperate Zone. S ...

and the surrounding oceans. Being located between the semi–permanent high pressure cell and the subpolar low (which does not change in intensity through the year and have little seasonal variation), the island is exposed to

westerlies The westerlies, anti-trades, or prevailing westerlies, are prevailing winds from the west toward the east in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude. They originate from the high-pressure areas in the horse latitudes and tren ...

throughout the year. Temperatures are low year round but without extreme minimum temperatures. The mean temperature in summer is with mean extremes of and while in winter, the mean temperature is with mean extremes of and . Mean temperatures are lower than in

but due to the moderating influence of the ocean, extreme minimum temperatures are higher than in Tierra del Fuego. Coastal areas have average temperatures above in the coldest month while higher altitude locations may average below . Though no reliable records are available, it is estimated that the island averages around of precipitation per year. However, owing to its relief, precipitation is highly variable across the island. In the eastern parts of the island, it averages based on 4 years of data. Precipitation occurs frequently on the island, averaging 252 days with precipitation. June is the wettest month while October is the driest. Thunderstorms are very rare. Snow frequently falls during the winter months, averaging 33 days although snow can fall during Autumn and Spring. The island receives high cloud cover throughout the year, with 74% of the days being cloudy. June is the cloudiest month while October is the least cloudy month. Fog is uncommon, averaging only 16 days per year. Similar to the rest of

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and ...

, the island is exposed to strong westerly winds. These winds often carry moisture with them, leading to frequent storms. Average wind speeds range from a high of in August to a low of in December.

Flora and fauna

Isla de los Estados is covered with dense low forests of ''Nothofagus''

southern beech ''Nothofagus'', also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of 43 species of trees and shrubs native to the Southern Hemisphere in southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and Australasia (east and southeast Australia, New Zealand, New Gui ...

. The animal life is composed mainly of

penguin Penguins ( order Sphenisciformes , family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain t ...

orca The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white pat ...

s, seals,

seagull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century ...

s and

cormorant Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the IOC adopted a consensus taxonomy of seven gen ...

s, as well as the human-introduced

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the rei ...

and

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...

s. The island is the location of one of the more southerly Atlantic breeding colonies of the

Magellanic penguin The Magellanic penguin (''Spheniscus magellanicus'') is a South American penguin, breeding in coastal Patagonia, including Argentina, Chile, and the Falkland Islands, with some migrating to Brazil and Uruguay, where they are occasionally seen as ...

. As early as the last part of the 18th century, Isla de los Estados was used as a seal harvesting location.James Colnett, Robert Galois (2004) ''A Voyage to the North West Side of America: The Journals of James Colnett, 1786-89'', published by UBC Press, . 441 pages

References

Books

External links

History and geography of the island

- InterPatagonia.com {{Authority control Geography of Tierra del Fuego Province, Argentina Estados Landforms of Tierra del Fuego Province, Argentina Jules Verne Islands of Tierra del Fuego

History

Geography

Geology

Climate

Flora and fauna

See also

References

Books

External links